Email Marketing: How to Improve Your Email Marketing Results

According to Jupiter Research, the average B2B email delivery rate, excluding bounces, is 89%. MarketingSherpa's "Email Marketing Metrics Guide" estimates that 14% of B2B email is bounced. By combining these numbers, then, we can estimate that 25% of B2B marketing emails never reach your intended recipients. So, how can you improve your deliverability and overall email marketing results?

1. Always be testing. Continually conduct simple A/B split testing where you send email to two groups with one variable altered in each (e.g. subject line, from, image, day sent, etc. According to Jupiter, marketers that test mailings are more likely to have conversion rates exceeding the industry average of 1% to 2%.
2. Statistical experts claim you want to achieve 30 to 50 responses to have a statistically significant or valid outcome. So, using the subject line as an example, you need the "winning" subject line to prompt at least 30 responses (in this case, opened emails).
3. Two of the most critical elements to test for open rates are the subject and from lines - day and time the email is sent are also significant.
4. Messages that appear with pictures have stronger conversion rates, so testing images and their placement is a good idea. Other personalization features, like naming the prospect in the message also should be considered.
5. Test the frequency of your emails. You want to find a balance that maximizes your ROI. Send to often and your open rates may drop; email too infrequently and you may miss some opportunities.
6. Some other elements you can test include: recipient segmentation, copy length, copy intro, closing copy, copy style, bullets vs. numbering, view above the fold, response buttons, images, colors, pricing, taglines, unsubscribe wording, credibility symbols (e.g. VeriSign, Truste, TrustBuild), refer a friend, customer testimonials, signatures and charts.
7. Be sure to have an abuse@yourcompany.com mailbox to receive feedback from ISPs and take steps to remove bad addresses from your list.
8. Email to everyone on your list at least once every 90 days.
9. Run outbound email through a content-checker to reduce the chance your message gets caught in a spam filters. You can try this one or Google for more options.
10. To ensure your recipients recognize your messages, use your brand in your email "from" field and use the same address consistently.